Even the brightest minds struggle sometimes
by Xenay LP
Summary: One-shot. John finds out that even the brightest of minds can have difficulties. - Or the one where Sherlock is dyslexic and John finds out and helps him. I wrote this because I'm dyslexic and people gotta stop calling us stupid.


**So as you might have figured out from the description, this is about Sherlock being dyslexic. First is how John found out and then two small scenarios of the problems I struggle with because of dyslexia. This was written on the iPhone app 'Pages' so there are hopefully no accidental typos except for the purposeful ones in Sherlock's texts.**

Sherlock Holmes is the most brilliant man John had ever met. In many ways.

Yet there was one thing that took John a while to notice.

They had been living together for barely a week when John first started to notice:

The detective always had John text back on his phone for him. At first John had thought the detective was just lazy, or maybe felt above such trivial things.

But looking at the (badly) scribbled notes he took while doing god knows what experiments, John was getting suspicious. First of all the hand writing was horrible. Even as a doctor, which had a reputation for their unreadable hand writing, could barely read two words in one minute. Because not only was his writing horrible, but his spelling seemed even worse.

John shrugged it off to his new flatmate just being messy when he has to focus on more important things than spelling.

It was two and a half weeks later that the pieces finally came together for John.

Sherlock had lost his phone in a fight with a criminal. Well, lost is the wrong word. More like smashed into 36 pieces that no glue could repair it to function again.

So Mycroft was now texting John about his brother, since he refused to just go and buy a new phone.

And John's phone had auto correct deactivated.

So when John was out to buy milk and left his phone at home (after Mycroft kept nagging him to get Sherlock to buy a new phone, he had had enough), Mycroft had kept sending texts. And to get Sherlock to answer him himself he kept the alert on.

Sighing in frustrated defeat, Sherlock finally got up from the sofa and texted his brother furiously.

Later when John got back the phone was silent and Sherlock was nowhere to be found.

His phone laid on the coffee table in the living room with the screen down, and so John went over to pick it up and see if Mycroft had anything to do with the vanishing of his flat mate.

There was a last unread text from Mycroft, saying "The car is waiting."

What had happened while he was gone?

John opened the chat and went to where he recognized his own messages.

JW: Mycroft for gods sakes stop texting me about your brother! I am not his babysitter!

MH: You don't understand the importance of him having his phone.

MH: He needs to be able to text me if he's in any danger.

MH: Including lists.

MH: You can not keep ignoring this, Doctor Watson. You would do wise to make my brother get a new phone.

JW: For the last time Mycroft, get him a new one yourself!

MH: He will not accept anyhing I give him. My brother can be painfully stubborn.

MH: If you don't do it then you are leaving me no choice but to act myself.

MH: I will be sending a car to Baker Street.

JW: mycrofft leaf jonn out off this!

(John had to squint. The spelling was so far off that it was almost funny.)

MH: Ah Sherlock, how nice of you to finally answer.

JW: i mean it stop this myckroft i dont want a new fone i need my old one working aggain

MH: You can be so stupid sometimes. My technicians can perfect the auto correction of any new phone you decide to get. Stop being so stubborn and just accept my help for once in your life, brother mine.

JW: fine

MH: The car is waiting.

Just then the front door opened and the missing detective came up the stairs.

Without letting him come in for a second, John decided to risk voicing his theory. "You are dyslexic."

Sherlock stopped dead in his tracks and stared at John like a deer caught in headlights.

Then he recovered from his momentary shock, made his deductions and only said "yes."

John didn't know what to answer to that.

"So... you got a new phone..?" He said, pointing to the new iPhone in his flatmates hand.

Sherlock looked down at it as well, as if he had forgotten about it. "Yes. Mycroft had his little henchmen do some... upgrades."

John smiled kindly. "You don't have to be so secretive about it with me. And it's perfectly fine to need help with some things."

Sherlock frowned at that statement as if it personally offended him. And thinking about it, John thought it actually might have.

* * *

They were called to another crime scene, or rather Sherlock had gotten a text from Lestrade.

He frowned at his phone.

John noticed. "What's wrong?"

Sherlock handed him his phone.

Lestraad: Got a new murder at the Shishabar. No apparent signs of injuries, we're thinking it might have been poison.

"What in the world is a 'Shis Haber'?" Sherlock asked.

John quirked an eyebrow before he understood what he meant. "No, no, he meant this bar. You know what a Shisha is, right? This drug inhalation thing?" Sherlock gave a short nod. "This place is just called 'The Shisha Bar'."

Sherlock took his phone back and seemed to read the name again. Then he seemed to finally read it correctly.

* * *

After the case they were told to give their statements, but since Lestrade and his team was called to a simple bank robbery, they had to do it in written form on a piece of paper.

When John had almost half of his paper filled with words he looked over to check on his friend. His face fell when he saw that he had only gotten to the fourth line. And only that because every second word had been crossed out and written again, differently.

When Sherlock noticed that John was staring, he quickly defended "haven't been writing on paper in a long time. It's almost sad how people become dependent on technology."

John agreed. "You need help?"

And Sherlock said what John had never thought he would ever hear his flatmate say.

"I'd like that very much."


End file.
